


Be my friend, but secretly like me

by Ciara_in_cotton_socks



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Bayley is a good bro, Chad Gable needs a hug, Drunk Chad, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Jordan needs a hug, M/M, Male Slash, Male-Female Friendship, hugs for everyone, post-Takeover: The End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 07:09:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7257625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciara_in_cotton_socks/pseuds/Ciara_in_cotton_socks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After NXT Takeover: The End, both Chad and Jason feel responsible for the loss of their titles.  With their friendship fractured and Chad freezing him out, Jason does his very best to be mad at him.  Cue Chad arriving back to their apartment completely drunk, and Jason finding his resolve tested to the limits.</p>
<p>He can absolutely stay pissed off at Chad, can't he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be my friend, but secretly like me

**Author's Note:**

> My first time posting here. 
> 
> I've been apprehensive about posting, but after seeing these two at the recent NXT live show in Dublin I couldn't contain myself any longer- their chemistry was just so incredible! That said, kudos and comments (both complimentary and constructive) would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> The title, if anyone is interested, comes from a song called 'Take my Hand' by a little Irish band named Picture This. A bit cliche, perhaps, but definitely fitting for these two (in my head at least!).

When the match is finished, when the Authors of Pain have stalked away, when he’s peeled himself off the canvas and limped to the back, Jason shrugs off the ministrations of the medical staff and lingers by Chad’s side until his partner manages to roll over and meets his worried gaze with a blank stare.

“I’m fine,” he spits through clenched teeth, though it’s obvious that he’s not. “You can go now.”

Jason opens his mouth to argue, but Chad just rolls back the other way, leaving him facing his battered back. It doesn’t take a genius to see that’s the end of the conversation. Reluctantly, Jason leaves his partner on the cot and goes back to the locker room to wait for him. When he picks up his gear bag it feels too light, lacking a familiar weight, so he drops it again and opts to shower while he waits for Gable.

The water burns hot against his skin, tender both from the match and the beating that followed. Burning is good. Maybe if it burns hot enough it will eradicate the guilty feeling gnawing at his bones. He lost them the match. He got pinned. He’s the reason they no longer have the titles. He caused all of this, caused the tears in Chad’s eyes, caused him to shut him out in the medical room. It’s his fault.

The shower runs until the water goes cold and his nail beds are blue. Chad doesn’t come to find him; instead, Tye awkwardly tosses him a towel that quivering fingers fumble to catch. 

When he resurfaces Chad is in the locker room, packing up his things. He pauses, his signature towel twisted between his hands, and glances up at Jason. For a moment, the weight of the situation hangs in the air between them like a lead balloon. Neither of them speak, then both do at once:

“Dude, I’m so, so, so-“

“See you at home, maybe,” says Chad brusquely, and he rushes out the door without as much as a backward glance. 

Jason is left to flounder at the dismissal, unaccustomed as he is to being the snubbed one in their partnership. It takes him a moment to get his bearings again before he remembers himself, picks up his own bag and heads to the green room, which is, mercifully, mostly empty. He winces his acceptance of sympathetic gestures, scans the place for Chad and comes up empty. A weary sigh escapes him and before he can beat his retreat his arms are full of Bayley, squeezing tight so that the coldness he’s felt since the shower is somehow knocked out of him.

“Hi Bayls,” he mutters, and she hugs him tighter. It strikes him that she knows how this feels, the loss of that thing you’ve strived so long for, and he holds her a bit closer, breathes in the apple-happy-sunshine scent of her shampoo.

“You’ll get ‘em back,” says Bayley firmly. “I know you will.”

“Hard to win the tag titles when your partner’s freezing you out.”

She looks up at him, all doe-eyed earnestness. “Chad’s hurting too, JJ. He’ll come around.”

“Yeah, maybe...”

She pinches his elbow. “He will. C’mon, you shouldn’t be driving after what those jerks pulled. I’ll drive you home.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be carpooling with Finn and Carmella?”

Shrugging nonchalantly, Bayley begins to steer them both towards the door. “They won’t mind. Gives Finn more time to fanboy over Shinsuke.”

He knows he ought to laugh, but doesn’t. He can’t stop thinking about how cold Chad had been, how clear it is that he blames him for the loss. He’s right to; he’s the one that got pinned, after all. No wonder Gable’s pissed at him.

The whole way home he can barely focus on Bayley’s determinedly chipper wittering, and the bouncy pop music blaring from her stereo fades into white noise as images flicker beneath his eyelids. The so-called Authors of Pain don’t even feature- they’re less than a blemish on the nightmarish night. All he can see is the ref’s hand slapping the mat in the three-count, Dawson and Wilder’s jubilant snarls, Gable’s face fading from desperation to defeat when he realised what had happened. What Jason had let happen.

So consumed in self-loathing is her that Bayley has to prod him in the ribs when they pull up outside his building. He grimaces at her in lieu of a smile, half-heartedly accepts the kisses she presses to his cheeks and politely refuses her offer to see him in. Instead, he shoulders his gear bag and heads in alone. His sneakers squeak a little against the cheap linoleum of the stairs (he can’t remember the last time the elevator worked properly) and it feels like he’s wearing concrete boots like in one of Gable’s gangster movies. Every step is an extensive effort.

Once he’s jimmied his key in the lock- it always sticks-he finds the apartment in darkness and Gable’s bag discarded on the breakfast bar they thought was cooler than a dining table. No note exists as to his whereabouts, which is an irregularity. Gable always leaves a note, and demands the same courtesy of Jason. He’s always claimed to be irritated by it, but there is a certain comfort in the paper scraps stuck to the fridge with magnets bearing goofy motivational quotes.

Jason takes his partner’s bag and deposits it at the foot of his bed, not before removing his damp singlet, socks and treasured towel and depositing them in their shared bathroom hamper. He sits on Gable’s neatly-made bed for a moment, smiles ruefully at the collection of snapshots pinned to the headboard. Most of them are blurry, shots of past matches taken by Bayley or Cass or whoever else could sneak out front to watch. He chuckles in spite of himself when he sees the words ‘So sick!’ scrawled in Gable’s chicken-scratch across a photo of them in Dallas. They look ridiculous, the pair of them ugly-crying with the coveted belts around their waists. Jason’s straps are down, his face screwed up with emotion, and Chad is hanging off him, hair in his face and cheeks streaked with jubilant tears. The titles shine like treasure.

Jason gets up and leaves.

He falls into bed, still in his sweats and an ancient merch shirt of Sami’s, curls up in a ball and clenches his eyes shut. It’s a pitiful attempt at sleep, but it’s the best he can muster with the emptiness clawing at his chest.

________________________

He must have been more exhausted than he realised, because when he opens his eyes it is pitch black outside and his phone lock screen reads 02:41, superimposed over a selfie Chad took of the two of them on the umpteenth occasion that he’d stolen Jason’s phone with the aim of making him laugh when training hadn’t panned out as he’d hoped. Jason scrubs at his eyes, blinks away sleep-sand and then freezes at the sound of rustling from the kitchen. More rustling follows, then a bang, the sound of something shattering and a muttered curse.

Gable.

He must have decided to go out for drinks, Jason realises, and he feels so stung by the continuing snub that he considers just rolling over and smashing his pillow over his head. But then something else breaks and Gable, well, yelps.

Jesus, why did Gable have to make him all moral? He was perfectly content being a self-confessed douchey asshole until that little punk came along with his stupid sweatbands and those idiotic towels! He’s so chipper, all the time, and so nice, and Jason never asked for any of that to rub off on him. He’s never wanted friends, he wanted titles, so how has that focus shifted?

He should leave Gable to it. He should let him clean up his own mess, make him stew after abandoning him earlier. That would be justified. He could totally do that and not feel guilty about it. If anything, he’ll feel smug. Pleased that Gable’s not the only one who can make his so-called tag team partner feel alone.

He decides he hates Gable when he finds himself tumbling out of bed and stumbling towards the kitchen. He tells himself it’s just to make sure it isn’t one of his mugs that Gable’s broken. Again.

The lights are still off, despite the darkness, so Jason flicks them on only to be met with the sight of Chad Gable swaying in front of the sink with what looks like at least two of his mugs in smithereens at his bare feet. His hair is a tangled mess, his eyes glazed and unfocused, and there is a questionable stain down the front of his shirt. He looks pathetic, and the spiteful part of Jason’s brain, the part that’s still pissed over being left at Full Sail, spits words to start the fight Jason sort of thinks he wants.

Only his mouth seems to have detached itself from that part of his brain, because what comes out is, “Shit dude! Don’t move okay?” and before he knows it he’s stooping with a dustpan and brush to clear up the mess Gable’s made.

“JJ?” Chad says eventually, blinks down at him blearily like he’s only just noticed him- which, to be fair, he may have, shitfaced as he evidently is. “Wha’?”

“There’s crap in your foot,” says Jason bluntly, picking out the bigger bits and dumping them in the trash. “It’s bleeding, c’mon.”

He takes him by the wrist, leads him into the bathroom while pointedly ignoring Chad’s incoherent babbling. At first he tries perching him on the edge of the tub, but with his balance shot it quickly becomes clear that it will only lead to disaster, so they end up moving proceedings to the toilet seat. Jason fetches the first aid kit from under the sink, as well as the tweezers from the cabinet which he absolutely has never used to pluck his eyebrows, especially not after Alexa made a passing remark in the gym.

“Brace yourself,” he tells Chad, chuckling when he does so literally, gripping the edges of the seat with white-knuckled intensity and biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. What follows is something of a slapstick comedy; Jason’s fingers are too big for the tweezers, Chad almost topples from his perch twice, and the only band-aids they turn out to own are Disney Princess ones Bayley bought them as a joke when they moved in. As professional wrestlers prone to embarrassing clumsiness, they are terribly ill-equipped.

“Sorry dude,” says Jason as he sticks Ariel over Chad’s big toe. His companion shrugs bonelessly.

“Liked that movie when I’s little,” he slurs. “Flounder was the shit.”

“Naw man, it’s all about Sebastian,” Jason counters before he remembers he’s mad at him and harrumphs indignantly at his own softness. “Right, bed. C’mon.”

“Wait, wait, wait, feel sssick,” Chad moans all of a sudden. His face is grey, eyes wild with panic, and Jason hastily scrambles to get him situated on his knees in front of the toilet just in time for the colourful contents of his stomach to make a dramatic reappearance. Jason gags in sympathy and gingerly pets Chad’s back, breathing heavily through his mouth to avoid joining him in his vomiting.

“It’s OK,” he says lamely as Chad’s shoulders shake. “Get it all out, dude.”

“JJ,” Chad groans between bouts of retching, reaches blindly for his hand. Jason reluctantly allows him to clutch it. “JJ, ‘m sorry.”

“Don’t.” Jason twists up to grab a washcloth from the sink and pulls back Chad’s overlong hair before pressing it to his clammy forehead, a feeble attempt at comfort. It doesn’t take long for Chad to start hurling again, and the whole thing is so pathetic that he almost forgets his earlier grievances with the older man. “I’ll get you some water.”

Out in the kitchen, he grabs a glass and leans heavily against the sink when he has filled it. This whole day has been just too much. His whole form aches with wounds he refused to have tended earlier, and his head is too full of conflicting thoughts to allow rationality a place. Gable had been so cold earlier, yet now he’s sprawled with his face in the toilet bowl wanting Jason to hold his hand and spluttering out apologies every chance he gets. He thinks he could use a less complicated tag-team partner; he’s sure Ryder never has this problem with Mojo.

Sighing- and seriously, it feels like that’s all he’s been doing tonight- he heads back into the bathroom. Chad seems to have finished blowing chunks and is instead leaning back against the wall. His eyes are squeezed shut and he still looks a bit green around the gills, but his appearance is considerably less corpse-like than earlier, so there’s that. He doesn’t open his eyes when Jason flushes the toilet, nor when Jason presses the glass into his hand. It’s only when Jason retreats, having decided that leaving him to fend for himself at this point is definitely fair and not at all petty, that he unhelpfully decides to come back to the land of the living.

“JJ,” he says, then drinks some of the water. “JJ, don’t go. ‘M sorry.”

“Can you stop saying that?” asks Jason, vitriolic. “You got wasted. It happens, and I wasn’t just gonna let you drown in a puddle of your own puke. I’m not a complete waste of space, you know.”

“Huh?” says Chad blankly, then clumsily pats the floor next to him. “C’mere, wouldja? I’ve got- got somethin’ to say.”

“Gable-“

“No, no, no Gable, y’never call me Gable anymore. Please, JJ, please c’mere.”

It’s absolutely not the puppy-like expression on Gable’s- Chad’s- face that causes him to sit on the floor next to him with his knees drawn up to his chest. It’s just because he’d feel bad if he woke up and Chad had killed himself with alcohol-fuelled stupidity. That’s definitely it; after all, with all the trouble he had trying to find the right partner the last time it would suck to try to find a replacement.

He tells himself that right up until Chad lays his head on his shoulder, and then his resolve crumbles like a cookie. 

“You’re an asshole,” he says, just to make himself feel like he’s not completely soft. Chad presses his nose into the olive-green material of his t-shirt. “You know that, right?”

Chad makes an unhappy little noise. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “Y’should replace me. Get Tye back, everyone loves him now.”

“Well I mean, I could. But Tye never gave me any towels, so...”

“So you’ll keep me? Even though I cost us the match? Cos that’s what I wanted to say, y’know, that I’m sorry. ‘M sorry I let you down JJ.”

Jason stares at him and produces an eloquently baffled , “Huh?”

“I couldn’t get to you! I tried, I did, but I couldn’t get up an’ they hit you with the Shatter Machine an’ I couldn’t stop them an’... an’... an’...”

Jason stares harder. “Dude,” he says slowly. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

“I’m sorry, OK! I’m so sorry I let you down, JJ, ‘m sorry I lost us the titles, just please don’t hate me OK? Please?”

“But you were so mad at me, you wouldn’t even talk to me in medical!”

“Mad? ‘M not mad, JJ. Jus’ didn’t wanna see your face lookin’ all disappointed in me after I screwed everything up. ‘S why I left, why I went to the bar an’ drank all those stupid blue drinks, wanted to forget how I screwed everythin’ up. You took a chance on me as your partner an’ I messed up an’ now we’ve lost the titles an’...”

Jason groans. “I wasn’t disappointed in you. I was disappointed in myself, I’m the one that got pinned, and I wanted to make sure you were OK, say sorry for losing us the match.”

“Oh,” says Chad. A pregnant pause follows. “We’re idiots, aren’t we?”

“We’re not idiots, we’re just...”

“Idiotic?”

“Shut up, you goober.”

“JJ?”

“Yeah?”

“’M sorry you had to smell my puke.” Chad snuffles against his shoulder. “And that you wasted Ariel on me.”

“Shut up,” says Jason again, but without any venom. He ruffles Chad’s hair, something he’d never get away with if Chad was anything resembling sober. “I’m sorry I was mad that you were mad, even though you weren’t actually mad.”

“Hmmmm,” Chad mumbles incoherently, eyes drifting shut again. Jason pokes him in the side.

“Bedtime, old man,” he says firmly. 

He gets to his feet, then helps Chad to do the same. The still-drunk man sways a little, at least until he throws his arm across Jason’s shoulder blades. They weave their way down the corridor to Chad’s room in an awkward, stumbling three-legged race until eventually Jason can deposit Chad on his bed and set about untying his shoelaces. The effort Chad makes to intervene and do it himself is nothing short of negligible, not that Jason minds; at least he manages to get his shirt off by himself.

“I’m leaving you another glass of water, and a couple of Advil for the morning when you take up residence in Regret, Ohio,” says Jason once Chad has burrowed under his covers. He beams sloppily up at him.

“You’re awesome,” Chad says happily. “Always lookin’ out for me.”

“Someone has to. Night, buddy.”

“Jay?”

“What?”

“Would-“ He breaks off, fidgets, his features uncharacteristically guarded. “Will you stay?”

“Chad...”

“Please? I just... feel a bit... empty, after it all. You get that, right?”

And the thing is, he does. He gets it completely. They’ve made up, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still feel the ache of losing the titles, pulsing away beneath the surface of his skin like some poisonous parasite. It hurts, and the only person who can even begin to fathom exactly how much is staring hopefully up at him like he can fix everything.

Jason Jordan is a man proud of his strong moral code, but he is not immovable. 

So he does what he probably shouldn’t and climbs into bed next to Chad, even smiles ever so slightly when he feels the structure shift and Chad roll over to face him.

“Y’know,” he says wryly. “Things would have been a lot simpler if you’d just done that earlier.”

And much to his delight, Chad laughs. It is big and goofy and open-mouthed, and his breath smells putrid from the acrid combination of alcohol and vomit, but it is wonderful. Jason can’t help but grin in response, glad to have caused that explosion of mirth.

“JJ,” Chad whispers, once his laughter calms to a gurgle and they’ve turned out the lights. Jason cocks his head in his direction.

“Yeah?”

“You know you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, right?”

“Dude, shut up, you’re still drunk.” He pauses. “You’re not completely terrible either, I suppose.”

“Jerk,” Chad giggles, but he scoots closer and nestles in, flush against Jason’s side, with a contented little noise. “I love you very much, you know.”

“Love you too, boozy,” says Jason good-naturedly, at least until he feels cold fingers creep beneath the hem of his shirt. He freezes. “Dude, what are you doing?”

He doesn’t need to see Chad’s face to know that he’s smirking. 

“Told ya, I love you Jay,” he whispers, fingers continuing to wander. “Jesus, you’re like one big ab.”

“Chad, you’re drunk man, c’mo-“ And holy shit that’s Chad’s tongue licking a strip up his neck. When he begins to nudge at the corner of his mouth, Jason pulls away so fast that he overshoots his escape and ends up in a heap on the floor with his feet tangled in his would-be seducer’s sheets. Great. Just great.

He scrambles to his feet and flicks on the bedside lamp so that he can see Chad properly. He’s not sure what he expects- more laughter maybe, because surely he’s joking? A terrible, poorly-timed joke, yes, but that’s what it must be, isn’t it?

Whatever he expects, it’s not Chad sitting bolt upright with his fingers splayed over his mouth and his eyes brimming with tears.

“I’m sorry!” he squeaks frantically, tugging at his hair. “JJ I’m sorry, don’t hate me, please, please!”

Jason stares at him for the longest time, unable to form words. His neck tingles where Chad’s tongue was. Unfortunately, his silence does nothing for Chad’s wellbeing and soon he’s worked himself into such a panic that Jason thinks he’s going to make himself sick again.

“I- dude, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I mean, not that I didn’t mean it, I meant it, but I didn’t mean to do it like that, I just, you’re great, you’re so great, and I’ve wanted to for ages and I’m so wasted and I’ve ruined it now and I don’t really want you to go back to Tye and, and, and-“

He babbles on so much that he doesn’t even realise Jason has moved until he’s sitting in front of him on top of the duvet, looking at him evenly.

“Oh,” says Chad, and then he prepares to launch himself back into his rambling apology so Jason does what any logical person would do and shoves his hand over his mouth.

“Breathe,” he reminds Chad, his heart beating a hummingbird flutter in his chest. Chad bobs his head enthusiastically, so he removes his hand. Thankfully, he seems to have calmed a little and does not speak again. Instead he watches Jason warily.

“Did you mean it?” Jason asks him quietly. “Chad, did you mean it?”

A nod.

“And is this just a drunk realisation? Because, no offence dude, I’m not interested in being someone’s drunken fumble when they’re horny and want somewhere to stick their dick.”

Chad shakes his head frantically.

“No!” he squeaks vehemently. “No, no, I wanted to, I always want to, JJ.”

“Then why have you never said anything?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Chad gives a shaky, despairing laugh. It’s not a pleasant sound like earlier. “You date girls JJ, I couldn’t exactly just walk up to you in the gym and say ‘Yo, dude, I know we’re tag partners in a notoriously homophobic industry and you’re straight as a yardstick, but you’re all I ever think about and I really want to kiss you’.”

They both just stare at each other a minute, and then Chad throws himself backwards so hard that his head cracks off the headboard with a nasty thunk. He puts his pillow over his head so that when he wails it comes out muffled by the fabric.

“Why do I even talk?” he whines. “Seriously, every time I open my mouth I just make everything worse. Go back to your bed before I say anything else.”

Jason pokes him in the leg through the covers.

“Honestly man, I’m just impressed you could use all those big words when your blood’s gotta be like fifty per cent alcohol right now.”

Chad lifts the pillow and peers at him, his eyes squinted with suspicion.

“You’re not mad?” he asks in a small voice.

“Mad, no. Surprised? Hell yes,” says Jason. He makes his way up to sit on the pillow he’s recently vacated. “Saying you think about kissing me all the time is kind of a bombshell, dude.”

Chad sighs miserably. “I know, and I really am sorry. Look, in the morning I’ll take my stuff and go.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll move out, OK, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable and I just attacked your mouth, but I’d really like it if we could stay tag partners because we’re kinda awesome, but I get it if you want to go solo now or something, you’d be so sick as the champ JJ, and-“

“Dude, seriously, you’re going to kill yourself, breathe. You’re not going anywhere.”

“But-“

“No buts. You’re the best partner I’ve ever had and you’re not a bad roommate either, even if you do leave towels everywhere. If you try to move out I’ll sit on top of you and make you watch John Hughes movies with me. You’re too little to fight me off too, and you know it.”

“Mean,” says Chad, but he comes out from under the pillow properly so Jason counts it as a win. “Sorry about freaking out. S’pose I was a bit distraught.”

“It’s OK.” Jason smiles at him. “Can I maybe hug you now?”

“I’d like that.”

It really should be awkward, giving recent revelations. Jason should be tense and Chad should too, but for some reason they aren’t. They fit like two jigsaw pieces, just like they do after matches, and Jason buries his face in Chad’s hair when he feels him begin to shake in his arms.

“Don’t cry,” he pleads. “Chad, don’t cry. It’s all OK.”

“Do you have to be so perfect right now? Seriously, I just laid a bombshell and a half on you, you oughta be chewin’ me out and instead you’re comforting me? What the fuck dude?”

Jason shrugs into the hug. “You mean a lot to me, man. I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

And that’s the thing, he realises. He doesn’t just dislike seeing Chad hurt; it hurts him. When Chad is in pain, he feels it. When Chad laughs, he feels the corners of his mouth turn up even if he doesn’t know what’s funny. When Chad cries, which he’s only seen on a handful of occasions, his chest aches and he feels furious with whoever’s caused it and he wants to hold him like he’s doing now and not let go until he’s smiling again. Since they met, Jason has been changed irreversibly. Sure, he and Tye got on reasonably well for the most part, but this is different. He didn’t share an apartment with Tye. He didn’t use the good Disney princesses when Tye got busted open. Tye never made him soup when he got the flu like Chad did in January, even though it cost him a small fortune to keep his mom on the phone the whole time to coach him through it. What they have transcends partnership, that much he became aware of when they first came into the title picture, but he hasn’t realised precisely how transcendent it all is until now, with Chad tipping his chin back to look up at him, his forehead puckered and eyes watery. He feels the familiar surge of protectiveness, the urge to keep him from ever looking like that again.

Oh.

“JJ?” says Chad worriedly. “You OK? You kinda got lost for a minute there?”

Jason swallows thickly. “You know when you said you wanted to kiss me?”

“JJ...”

“I’d like that too.”

“Oh,” says Chad, and then, “Oh. A-are you sure? I don’t want you doing this out of, like, pity, o-or a sense of obligation or something, yeah, an-“

“Chad, please, please, be quiet,” he begs, and then he dips his head down to press their lips together. Chad inhales sharply against his open mouth.

In the annals of perfect first kisses, it wouldn’t even be a footnote. It is sloppy and Jason’s head is angled wrong so his jaw is jutting into Chad’s cheek, and Chad’s breath is pretty foul and he’s still sort of crying, and it’s 4:30 in the morning and the pair of them are exhausted. But it’s eager and frenetic and Chad makes a little noise of pleasure that sends delighted electricity surging right down to Jason’s toes.

Reluctantly, Jason breaks off the kiss and places his hands on Chad’s pliant shoulders. The smaller man is grinning goofily up at him like he’s strung the moon and he has to bite his lip to stop himself kissing him all over again.

“That,” says Chad dreamily. “Was so sick.”

He tries to come back for more, but Jason shakes his head with a little laugh.

“You’re still drunk,” he reminds Chad, who whines in protest. “I don’t want you doing something you’ll regret or not remember in the morning.”

“Trust me, there’s no way I’m regretting this!”

“Chad.”

“Jason,” he mimics, but Jason shakes his head firmly.

“This is still a lot for me to wrap my head around, you know,” he admits in a low voice. “I gotta process it all, and I can’t do that with you sucking my face.”

“Okaaaay,” says Chad, but he sounds bitterly disappointed so Jason ruffles his hair and squeezes him tight.

“Hey, hey,” he says gently. “If you wake up later, sober, and you still want this, I’m in. All in, dude.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You’ll stay with me though, right?” asks Chad, trying and failing to stifle a yawn as his eyelids droop languidly. Jason grins.

“Course I will,” he says, and they lie down all tangled together with Chad’s hands fisted in the front of Jason’s shirt. He falls asleep quickly, no doubt due to a mixture of intoxication, exhaustion and overwhelming emotion. Jason watches him sleep and waits for the inevitable doubts that accompany his over-analysis of everything he does.

He falls asleep as the sun begins to seep through the drapes without a single deprecating thought having entered his mind.

________________________

Hours later, he wakes to find his arms empty and Chad moaning quietly at the edge of the mattress, his head in his hands and the Advil gone from his bedside table. Jason holds off on speaking, doesn’t want to startle him after all that’s happened between them since Takeover. It feels strange that it was just last night.

“Did what I think I’m remembering actually happen last night?” Chad asks eventually, not turning around so that Jason is forced to stare at his back in the hope that it will somehow give away his feelings on the subject. It doesn’t, so Jason is forced to answer.

“Uh... yeah, yeah I guess it did.”

Chad exhales loudly. “Alright. Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah, alright. Would you, maybe, wanna do that again?”

Jason barrel rolls across the expanse separating them and props his chin on Chad’s shoulder from behind. He can’t help but grin impishly.

“Once you’ve brushed your teeth? All in, dude.”

“Jerk!” Chad exclaims, but he’s already on his way to the bathroom, polishing off the last of the water on the way. He turns in the doorway and cocks his head with a hand on his hip. “Are you coming or what?”

Jason clatters across the floor after him; he doesn’t need to be asked twice.

________________________

Later, when they get to the Performance Center to begin a tireless campaign to regain their stolen titles, they are as inseparable and in sync as ever. If Chad pulls him a little too close in celebration of a perfectly executed German suplex that would make Lesnar himself green with envy, they don’t mention it. Chad takes the car to go get them lunch, and no sooner is he out the door than Jason finds himself flanked by Bayley and Carmella, both of them wearing what can only be described as shit-eating grins.

“Told you everything would work out!” Bayley sing-songs jubilantly. “Mella, Enzo owes me fifty bucks.”

“You guys took bets on whether we’d make up?!” Jason exclaims indignantly. On his other side, Carmella snorts without looking up from her phone and the news she is no doubt breaking to Enzo.

“No hon, we took bets on when you two ciuccios would get your heads out of your asses and realise you’re crazy for each other. Zo said it’d take until you hit the main roster, but Cass had a bit more faith in youse. Guess he’s just a big romantic, Zo’s a lucky guy.”

When Chad comes back, his arms full of smoothies, Jason is still fire-engine red and undergoing a grilling of FBI-level intensity from the two girls, as well as a more reserved Finn who is happily documenting proceedings on his phone for Sami.

“Chad! Save me!” Jason yells across the room, but Bayley just pins him down while her co-conspirators capture his partner. The pair of them are shoved into a corner, elbows knocking together, while the girls pester them for all sorts of details that make Chad splutter and Jason blush and Finn choke on a giggle. Jason shoots Chad an apologetic glance. “It was like Criminal Minds in here!”

“No chance of keeping a low profile then?” asks Chad, one eyebrow quirked. Jason snorts.

“With these weirdos? Fat chance.”

“So sick!” Bayley and Carmella chorus, and Jason hates everything, except then Chad brushes his lips to his cheek and he doesn’t hate anything, not even a little bit, not even at all.

**Author's Note:**

> So there you have it. If you've read this far, thank you; I'd love to hear your opinions on this first piece (who knows, maybe you'd prefer it to be my last, too!)


End file.
